I did it! I submitted the examen doctoral, my PhD program’s comprehensive exam. I wrote and wrote for 80 pages about research on museums and experience and innovation and storytelling and interdisciplinary collaboration and money and imagination, and how digital fits into all of that. This was something that felt impossible. It’s been […]
Read MoreI visited the Château de Fontainebleau one October several years ago, when fall was in full force. My memories of that visit are flooded with the yellows of the trees in the grounds, the crisp autumn smell in the air, and the golden quality of the light that poured through the windows into the ornate rooms. This sensory immersion was an integral […]
Read MoreI chopped off thirteen inches of hair last night. I was already overdue for a haircut a year ago when the pandemic came and shut down normal things like being indoors with strangers for grooming reasons. I decided to hold off on cutting my increasingly Lady-Godiva-length locks until I had been vaccinated. Chopping off my hair would be […]
Read MoreI just finished my first year as a Museum Studies PhD student at the Université du Québec à Montréal. I took all of the program's classes in this first year (!) and I've started research for my thesis on storytelling using digital media. It's been a very full year... Here are some of the lessons I learned [...]
Read MoreOne of my favorite museums in the world is the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A). Founded in 1852, it is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design. My last visit was in September 2012, when I was in London for a friend's birthday weekend. I may only have been in town for two days, but I [...]
Read MoreLooking for a way to take the Christmas story with you wherever you go? The 15th century German world had a solution: mobile personal chapels. Take the “Chapelle Cardon” in the Musée du Louvre: this small mobile chapel would have been used for private devotion when it was made in the early 1400s. It includes [...]
Read MoreI visited the British Museum on an autumn afternoon a few years ago. The state of the ancient statuary struck me: most of these objects were scarred from their journeys through time. From small pockmarks to missing limbs, these statues had not escaped the passage of time unscathed. I reflected [...]
Read MoreNovember's museum theme is VOYAGES. Museums can take you places. This month, we'll be revisiting the theme of voyages in museums (again). This theme is so rich, that I thought it was worth revisiting. We'll be looking at museums while traveling; we'll travel in museums while staying put. We'll travel through time, exploring the past and imagining the [...]
Read MoreI recently had the pleasure of visiting the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts with its musical audioguide. The first stop on the audio tour was a French statue of the Virgin and Child from the 14th century. The cult of the Virgin Mary was very common in both the visual and musical cultures of that time. This [...]
Read MoreHistoric châteaux differ from traditional museums in an important aspect: seasons. When I think about visiting most museums, I focus on what I’ll be seeing on the inside. But with historic châteaux and houses, I add in the factor of the time of year I will be visiting. I love making the pilgrimage to the Château de Malmaison during rose [...]
Read MoreOctober's museum theme is CALM. All month, I'll be looking for moments of calm in museums, because #PhD... It's only been a month since I started my PhD program here in Montréal, but I'm already feeling a bit overwhelmed. My museum attendance has also been dwindling (moment of honesty: I've only been to one museum this month [...]
Read MoreMy Montreal museum cocktail for the week led me to the small museum in Saint Joseph's Oratory, the grand basilica located on one of Mount Royal's peaks. I had already passed the Oratory and its enormous dome several times, and I was excited to learn what it was exactly. On a sunny May day, I arrived at the base of the Oratory's hill and was faced with seemingly never-ending outdoor stairs winding their [...]
Read MoreI've been in Montreal for only four months, but my life in Paris already feels like another lifetime. I recently traveled to New York City (to visit the lovely Sara, another 'Expat American-Expat-in-Paris'), which obviously meant dedicating a significant amount of time in the Metropolitan Museum of Art [...]
Read More"Niobides suppliantes". "Niobides en fuite". As I made my way through the Louvre one evening, it felt like every artwork that intrigued me was some version of a Niobid. I would be pulled to one Ancient Greek statuette, and then another, and each time the label would say “Niobid”. But what [...]
Read MoreThis is an installment of Creative July on the theme of Love (f you missed it, check out a description of the project here!) One of the most beautiful expressions of love is touch. So, I went on a photo safari in the Louvre's Ancient Egypt galleries, on the hunt for touch. A photo safari is a visit to a museum focusing on details found [...]
Read MoreThe Cour Marly in the Musée du Louvre is grand. Filled with natural light and a forest of ficus trees, the courtyard houses an army of grand marble statuary. These stone figures display movement despite their insistent stillness, with rearing horses, racing gods and goddesses, harmonious allegories of rivers and [...]
Read MoreThis is part of Louvre Photo Safaris, a series that focuses on details found in Louvre artworks around various themes, with the aim of looking at everything differently. I know very little about Ancient Egyptian art. So during a recent stroll through the Louvre's Egyptian Antiquities galleries, I needed help looking at the objects. One of the first artifacts [ ... ]
Read MoreThis is part of Louvre Photo Safaris, a series that focuses on details found in Louvre artworks around various themes, with the aim of looking at everything differently. It is astonishing how objects as static as statues can suggest movement so powerfully. Walking through the palatial galleries of the Sully wing of the Louvre, I had [ ... ]
Read MoreThe current exposition-dossier at the Musée du Louvre is on Rhodes, a Greek island that was an important trading hub between the East and West in Antiquity. This exhibition focuses on Rhodian archeology from the 14th to 6th centuries BCE (from the Bronze Age to the Archaic period). It is literally the first exhibition in [ ... ]
Read MoreThe Centre Pompidou just opened its retrospective on Jeff Koons, the contemporary artist behind Balloon Dog and the porcelain Michael Jackson and Bubbles. I have never been a huge Koons fan, so I was hoping this exhibition would help me understand what the hype is all about. The first part of the exhibition was unexpected [ ... ]
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This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer.
IMAGINIBUS is a blog about playing in museums, with a focus on imagination and creativity.
This blog is a place to be inspired to use your imagination around artworks—and to see the art of your daily life.
When we engage creatively with art, museums can become playgrounds and laboratories to experiment with attention, mindfulness, and imagination. Interesting things happen when we use that museum gaze to look at our daily lives like a work of art.
Find more inspiration for playing with new ways of paying attention to your daily life here.
Hello! I'm Marina Gross-Hoy, a writer, Museum Studies PhD candidate, and mother currently living in Quebec. I take playing in museums very seriously.
Read more about the blog here.
Check out my newsletter on Substack to be inspired to see the art in your daily life.
